University Logos

[sterlingice]

Has anyone else's gone through something as (stupid?) as this? Who the hell gets paid $88K to redesign the "KU" in well, KU. And not only that, but they have pretty much copied another smaller school. Same font and letter goes under the other gimmick- the differences are that one is bolded and the colors are different. I swear, our school is managed by monkeys:



http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/se...erent_schools/

Same initials, similar logo, different schools

KU paid $88,900; Kutztown paid $20,000 two years ago

Friday, September 30, 2005

Call it the other KU.

Most Kansans have never heard of Kutztown University, a 9,800-student school in tiny Kutztown, Pa. Neither had the people involved with designing Kansas University’s new $88,900 logo, which bears striking resemblance to that of the other, eastern KU.

“They’re distinguishable, but they’re also easily confusable,” said Phillip Breeze, Kutztown University’s director of University Relations.

Breeze chuckled to himself Thursday when contacted by telephone and asked to look at an online version of Kansas University’s new logo. In his view, the two schools’ logos are just a little too close for comfort.

“I don’t see the two schools getting in a battle. I don’t think we’re fishing in the same pond for students,” he said. “But if we don’t police it, then it becomes public domain and we’re both hurting then. I just think we need to have the legal people chew on this bone.”

Both logos display the upper-case letters “KU” in a variation of the Trajan font, with the leg of the “K” swooping down underneath the “U.”

David Johnston, KU’s director of marketing, said he doubted it would cause anyone to actually confuse the two schools.

“We’re not concerned about it. We find it curious,” Johnston said. “Unless there’s confusion in the marketplace about who is KU and what is the home of the Jayhawks, then we’re not overly concerned about it.”

Paul Carttar, executive vice chancellor for external affairs at Kansas’ KU, called the similarity “unfortunate.” But he said he believed the school was on solid ground, in part because since 1979, Kansas University has owned the federal registered trademark for the letters “KU” for any higher-education uses.

He said that during the process of choosing the new logo, the school’s intellectual-property attorneys gave the green light to the new look.

“This is a humorous situation, but nevertheless we are very confident of the strength of our position,” he said.

The announcement of KU’s new logo earlier this year came after more than a month of gathering feedback on four finalist designs, both in meetings and online. The finalists were chosen with help from LandreyMorrow, a Portland, Ore., firm that was paid $88,900 for its work, which also involved creating a 53-page set of standards detailing how the logo should be used.

Some people have criticized the spending, but KU leaders say they believe they got a good value, given the size of the bids submitted by other firms.

Still, Breeze said his school’s logo overhaul, which preceded Kansas University’s by about two years, also included a 60-page set of design standards. But Kutztown U’s logo cost only $20,000.

Adrian Gonzales, a KU freshman from Shawnee, said of the two logos, “If you didn’t look at it that closely, you wouldn’t know there was a difference,” he said.

But he said KU’s logo change didn’t matter much to him, and he said he didn’t think the similarity between the two schools’ logos was a big deal.

The same goes for Keith Erney, 22, a senior at Kutztown University contacted by telephone Thursday.

“What do I care?” he asked. “It’s so far away.”

He said he wasn’t even that familiar with Kansas University.

“I have heard of it. Your colors are, I guess, purple and white?” he said.

- 6News reporter Brooke Wehner and staff writer George Diepenbrock contributed to this report.

[cuervo72]

You should go ahead and visit any number of Johns Hopkins Medicine sites. They paid what I assume is good money for a "visual presence", and what they got was....a squiggly line. And as far as public affairs is concerned, the squiggly line should go on ALL JHM publications.

Asshats.

[gstelmack]

The same people who paid $15,000 during a budget crunch to put some gawd-awful concoction of teal and pink neon tubes up as "a piece of art" when I was going to South Florida. I mean, fine, support the arts, but $15K for about 20 feet of twisted neon tubing, some scrap iron, and a weekend's worth of work?

[MalcPow]

Whenever there are intellectual property concerns, and the lawyers get involved, you're gonna get hosed. You paid more for the 53 page document than you did for the artwork, mmm billable hours...

[sterlingice]

I can't find the complete cost for our "Visual Identity Unification Project" right now, but I remember the logo was just part (at $89K) while the total cost was something like $300K. Never mind that I'll contend you could have a senior project among your ad school and get comprable results- it's not too hard to make a new "KU" since the Jayhawk is what everyone associates with KU anyways. The rest of the money was going to things like "making a unified logo" (combining the Jayhawk with the KU for new letterhead), "choosing official tones and hues" (re: picking the right blue, red, and yellow for the Jayhawk), and the like.

I guess this is what happens to ad execs once it went into the crapper in the late 90s- they work on selling Universities on sprucing up their logos.

SI

[vex]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

“I have heard of it. Your colors are, I guess, purple and white?” he said.

Go Cats!

[sterlingice]

Yeah, I loved that line- it made me smile and cry all at the same time

SI

[korme]

I could make a better Kansas University logo for 5 dollars

[Passacaglia]

“This is a humorous situation, but nevertheless we are very confident of the strength of our position,” he said.

I'm glad he can take the time to laugh at Kutztown University amidst all this.

Anyway, that's my biggest problem with TCY -- when I set the abbreviations for Kansas and Kutztown, having two KU's in the game gets really annoying. Does that recruit idolize Kansas or Kutztown?

There's a Gold Coast Dogs on Wabash and Lake, that has an article posted about Hyatt's logo. It talks about the tons of money they spent to get their logo, which is just the name with a curvy line under it, and how Gold Coast spent maybe 50 bucks to get some guy to draw their logo, which if I recall, is something like a male and female hot dog. I'll have to stop by and get the exact numbers.